Save your receipt; returns not always easy

Do yourself and your friends and family a favor this year when you shop for them: Get a gift receipt. Return policies are increasingly complicated and restrictive, Consumer World says in its annual return policy survey released today.

Some retailers including Sports Authority, 40% of Staples stores, Express, The Limited, and KB Toys use a computer database by The Return Exchange of Irvine, CA to track customer returns. (Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, and others reportedly use their own proprietary systems.)

Typically, stores swipe the shopper’s driver’s license when a return is being made, and if the store’s return limit is exceeded, the customer’s tendered return is denied. Some stores’ posted policies do not warn shoppers of a cap on frequent returns. Last year, Express and The Limited for the first time explicitly disclosed return limits albeit on inconspicuous signs and receipt backs: five returns within any 90 day period with a receipt, or only up to $300 without a receipt.

Check the return policy carefully. For example, Target offers no returns without a receipt, but will search their system for one, according to Consumer World.

Keep your receipt and keep the tags intact. Without a receipt, many retailers won’t credit you the full price, often giving you the lowest recent price at the time.

Return your unwanted items as soon as possible after the holidays. Click here for Consumer World’s list of return policies.

If your return gets denied and you think it may be an error, request a Return Activity Report from The Return Exchange. E-mail ReturnActivityReport@TheReturnExchange.com. (Include your name and a phone number; they’ll call and ask for your driver’s license number and state). For kicks, I did this. They told me they don’t have a record on me.

Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy at Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, told me the use of the database raises privacy concerns. Consumers are “complaining that their privacy is being compromised,” he said. “They’re not aware of what’s contained on the magnetic strip (of the driver’s license) that is swiped.”

A spokeswoman with the state Department of Licensing said that only the information on the front of your license is available when the bar code is swiped. She said she didn’t think it was different from “the old days” when merchants wrote down your information.

Stephens said the use of the database also raises “a consumer protection issue as well if you have an individual who is making a legitimate return, they may be denied the ability to make that return if they have exceeded the arbitrary limit that the merchant has determined.”